


The Lonely Prince

by wowbright



Series: Klaine One-Shots [3]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Blacksmithing, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Style, Fluff, Gen, Klaine week 2013, M/M, Magic, klaine fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-17 01:24:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1368805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wowbright/pseuds/wowbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Written for Klaine Week 2013. The day's theme: fairytale!Klaine.<a href="http://luckyjak.tumblr.com/">luckyjak</a><strong><span>asked for “</span></strong></em>
  <br/>
  <em>Burt Hummel the blacksmith has three sons (Finn, Sam, and Kurt) that the King hires and moves them into the palace to work on something, and the King’s son Blaine likes to stop by and say hi (slash oogle) to them because yay sweaty, dirty boys?”I did my best to deliver. AU with nods to canon through Season 3.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lonely Prince

King Anders’ younger son was a lonely boy. He had no companions his age. His elder brother had been born of King Anders’ first wife, and surpassed the younger by some dozen years. The elder traveled the kingdom on his father’s business and for the pleasure of enjoying his own celebrity (he was a kindhearted but vain young man, and he was doted on by the king’s subjects), and made it home only once a year or so for a feast day, and quickly left again.

Blaine spent his days being tutored in the arts that a nobleman must know. He read well, and could recite the kingdom’s history back to the beginning of time; his script was precise and legible, although without flourish or beauty; he played the lute and the harp with accuracy and passion; and he could wield a sword with finesse (but, even more importantly for a nobleman, his skills in conversation and the diplomatic arts was unsurpassed by even the king himself). He was a busy boy and an accomplished one; yet his father could see that Blaine longed for companionship.

“Blaine,” King Anders said one day. “You are getting older and there are no people your age in our court. It must be lonely for you.”

“My tutors are adequate company,” Blaine answered complacently.

“Perhaps it is time we find you a wife.”

“A wife?” Blaine replied. “Why, Father, I am not yet seventeen and besides,” Blaine looked toward the ground, “I do not think I am the marrying kind.”

King Anders patted his younger son roughly on the back. “So I thought of myself at your age,” he said. “Such a burden, to limit oneself to only one woman. You needn’t concern yourself with that, Blaine. A wife is a companion and the mother to your children; but you may have other women, as well, as long as you take care of your wife’s needs and have legitimate offspring with her.”

Blaine coughed and turned slightly red. “That’s not what I meant, Father. I – I am not interested in women in that way, either. I do not believe I will ever be.”

King Anders scratched his head. “You do not seem suited to a monks’ life.”

“No, sir,” Blaine said. “I am not.”

King Anders understood then what his son meant, and felt ashamed of himself that this had never occurred to him before. So he let the conversation drop.

King Anders did not know how to discuss this with his son. He felt he had failed as a father, to not notice something so fundamental about his own child. He stewed in his own remorse for a few weeks, and then came to a plan of action: If Blaine wanted no wife and could find no companion, he would at least need a friend; King Anders set out to be a friend.

The old carriage from King Anders’ coronation had been stored in the building next to the stables for many years. Seasons of damp and dust had rotted the wood and rusted the metalwork; but underneath, it was a fine carriage and would suit Blaine well one day should he decide to travel the land like his elder brother.

King Anders had his servants clean the carriage of dust and bring it to the empty workshop next to the castle. The workshop had not been used in years; Blaine’s older brother had spent many happy hours in it, building barrels and casks from scratch in his free time and earning himself the nickname “Cooper”; but it had been empty since.

King Anders brought Blaine to the workshop to admire the carriage. “Look at this beauty! It will my gift to you, if you will work with me to restore it to its former glory.”

“Father,” Blaine said. “It is a generous gift, but I am clumsy with my hands.”

“Bah!” said King Anders. “You play a fine lute and wield a sword well. Besides, every real man must learn how to work with his hands.”

“Yes, sir,” Blaine said.

They began to repair the carriage. Blaine was a quick learner, and soon knew all the names of the parts of the carriage, and understood how they worked together and with the horses better than his father did. King Anders was pleased, and told Blaine so.

“Thank you,” Blaine said. “But I am still the same man I was before I knew how to work on a carriage.”

Blaine was a smart boy, and often smarter than his own father. King Anders thought this was one of those times when Blaine meant more than he was saying; but not being as quick as his son, he could not guess at the meaning. He shrugged and decided not to fret about it.

—-

They were getting close to completing the carriage. Blaine was relieved; he didn’t hate working on it, but he didn’t find the work particularly pleasurable, and he doubted that his father did, either. He had never seen his father work with wood or metal before this undertaking. It was clear to Blaine that the king had only initiated the enterprise to introduce the boy to yet another of the manly arts, for on his own – neither being the marrying nor the philandering kind – Blaine could never be man enough for the king’s standards.

There was only one thing left to do now to complete the carriage and make it once again like new. The hinges on the doors had rusted in place, and no amount of scrubbing or oil would loosen them; the latches and door handles were similarly afflicted. So Blaine removed them and took them to his father’s blacksmith to have new ones fabricated in their place

It had been a long time since Blaine had been to the royal blacksmith. He used to go there as a child to watch the fires – so large and hot they could have come from the lungs of a dragon – and observe the men hammer sparks off of pieces of metal. Blaine imagined that each spark was a dragon seed, and that if it alighted in the right place, it would bloom into a monster before his eyes – an idea that both fascinated and terrified him.

He loved going there especially in winter, when the shop was so much warmer than any other part of either the castle or the citadel. When the men broke from their work and stepped away from the fires, they would peel off their overshirts and aprons, their muscular arms bared by sleeveless tunics.

Oh, yes, he adored the blacksmith’s shop.

There had been one particular man he loved to watch the best. Abelard had been young and strong, and had worn the ashes and fire-scars on his skin as marks of pride. He had been kind to young Blaine, explaining all his work to the boy, and taking an interest in the stories Blaine told him of their kingdom’s history, which Abelard had never heard before, having never gone to school nor had a scholar to tutor him.

One day, Abelard told Blaine that he had magnificent news to share. Blaine imagined what it could be. Perhaps Abelard was going to teach him to work metal, or would finally tell him the secret magic they used to keep the fire so hot. Perhaps one of the sparks, earlier in the day, had alighted in the right place and transformed into a dragon.

The news was none of these. No. Abelard was getting married to a fine young woman and would be moving to the duchy of King Anders’ nephew, and would be the lead blacksmith there.

Blaine had smiled because Abelard was smiling, and he congratulated the blacksmith heartily. But when it was time to bid goodbye, and Abelard hugged Blaine and said he would always think of him as the sweet younger brother he had never had, it was only Blaine’s years of instruction in etiquette that kept him from bursting into tears.

It had been many seasons now since Blaine had returned to the blacksmith shop. When he needed his sword sharpened or his chainmail repaired, he sent them with a servant; he never brought them himself.

This day, though, he determined to go himself. He was getting too old to avoid places just because they held sad memories; he must be braver now that he was becoming a man. Besides, he had heard that there was a new blacksmith now who had brought sons Blaine’s age. Although his father was wrong about many things, he was right that Blaine was lonely. It would be nice to be in the company of young men his age, even if they weren’t noblemen.

So Blaine tied the hinges and latches in a pouch and walked to the blacksmith’s shop. As he approached it, he could feel the warmth from its fires blow his way. It kindled fond memories in his heart.

“Excuse me,” he said as he stepped through the entrance. There were two young men standing over the center fire: one as tall as an ogre, and with bark brown hair; the other more of a human size, with light hair the color of the sun.

Their clothes were drenched in sweat and Blaine had that old familiar feeling low in his belly that he used to get watching Abelard. But this was more sudden and, though he knew them not, stronger. He thought, perhaps, they were the most beautiful young men he would ever set his eyes on.

He was wrong.

—-

Blaine did not visit long in the blacksmith’s shop. He felt bashful, and the blacksmith’s sons became bashful when they learned that he was the king’s son, although he insisted that they please stop bowing; the protocol was unnecessary outside of formal occasions. He learned their names, though – Finnigan and Samwise – and when he fell asleep that night, he lulled himself with images of their arms and eyes, and with the sound of their names repeated like firesong in his head.

Blaine returned to the blacksmith shop the next day to check on their work. And, perhaps, to check on their arms. But they were nowhere to be seen.

And yet, he was not disappointed.

For an angel stood in their place, polishing a shield to the brightness of the heavens. The angel was tall (though not as tall as the ogre-boy Finnigan) and lithe, and the light from the glowing coals in the firepit  behind him caught in his hair, making it a burnt-red like the autumn oak leaves. His eyes were like the summer sky and, although there were earthly ashes on the angel’s brow and cheeks, the radiance of his fair skin shone through.

On the angel’s shoulder stood a dragon hatchling, curled lazily into itself, eyes half-shut in somnolent pleasure.

Blaine’s impulse was to fall to his knees and bow with his head low toward the dirt floor; but as much as he instructed his muscles to bend his body so, they would not move.

“Cat got your tongue?” said the angel, not even looking up from his work.

“Yes,” Blaine said. Then, “No.”

The angel looked up and crooked an eyebrow at Blaine. The dragon turned its head to look, too. “I think ‘no’ is the correct assessment. I’ve heard people with no tongues talk before, and you enunciate much more clearly than they do.”

“Thank you,” said Blaine.

“You’re welcome,” said the angel, who set aside the shield and stepped toward Blaine. He offered his hand. “Kurt of Hummel, son of Burt of Hummel.”

“Oh,” Blaine said stupidly. He meant to take the angel’s – nay, Kurt’s – hand, but he found that his arm would not move.

Kurt frowned and dropped his arm to his side. “Is that a problem?” The dragon hatchling climbed from Kurt’s shoulder up his ear, then perched on the top of his head.

“No,” Blaine said. He dared not say more. If he had, it would have been along the lines of, _I thought you were an angel or, at the very least, some sort of creature of magic. But you have a very human name. So I must be mistaken._

_Except, there’s a dragon on your head, and you’re acting like it’s normal. So you **must** be magic._

Blaine thought this all sounded rather muttonheaded, so he kept his mouth shut.

Kurt cocked his head. The dragon kept its balance. “You’re rather miserly with your words.”

“I’m sorry,” Blaine said. “I don’t mean to be.”

Kurt smiled. It was as mesmerizing as the iron fires themselves, and as warm, too. “That’s alright. I’m told I can talk more than all the king’s armies put together. What can I do for you?” Kurt walked back toward the shield, picked it up, and resumed polishing it. The dragon hatchling climbed back down to Kurt’s shoulder.

“Oh,” Blaine said, biting his lower lip. “I left some hinges and a locking mechanism here yesterday so that copies could be made. I came to check –“

Beneath the ashes that dusted his face, Kurt of Hummel went white as a sheet. He loosened his grip on the shield, and it went clattering to the ground. “You’re the prince,” he said, his voice barely audible. “Oh shit.”

—-

It took quite a bit of reassuring on Blaine’s part to convince Kurt that he would not be drawn and quartered for treating the king’s son so irreverently, during which time the dragon hatchling scampered down Kurt’s arm onto the workbench, then scurried off to where Blaine could see it no more. “We don’t do that sort of thing in this kingdom,” Blaine said. “And besides, even if we did, we wouldn’t do it for mere speech. One would have to – well, even if one is a murderer, it teaches the wrong lesson to torture him to death.”

Kurt raised both eyebrows, and appeared to be looking down his nose at Blaine. No one had looked at Blaine quite that way before; he found that he rather liked it, at least when it was done by this Kurt of Hummel. “It’s an odd kingdom you people run here,” Kurt said.

“But a good one, I hope?”

Kurt sighed. “Better than the last one, that’s for sure. My mouth was always getting us into trouble over there.”

Blaine looked at Kurt’s mouth. It was pink and soft-looking like the climbing roses that bloomed outside Blaine’s window in summer. “I like your mouth,” he said.

Kurt smirked.

“I mean,” Blaine stammered, “the words that come out of it.” He took a breath. “You’re full of wit. It shows intelligence.”

Kurt rolled his eyes – but even having just met Kurt, Blaine could discern that the condescension was feigned. For Kurt’s eyes were sparkling as brightly as the shield, and his rows of pretty, white teeth shone in his smile. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Blaine’s pulse quickened. His blood seemed to be reminding him that he was very much alive, and that life was a cherished thing. So Blaine inquired whether he might tarry in the shop for awhile to watch Kurt at his work. 

Kurt winked. “You’re the prince; you can do anything you want.” 

Blaine replied that he was not that kind of prince.

Kurt smiled a small, pleasured smile. “I could get used to this kingdom.”

“I hope you will make it your home for many years,” Blaine said, and then wondered if that was too much.

—-

Blaine wanted to ask about the dragon, but he wasn’t sure of the etiquette. He had never met a dragon before. He only knew that they kept to themselves, which was why they were so rarely seen; when they consorted with humans, it was only because the humans had dragon-like qualities. He supposed, in Kurt’s case, it was because he was a blacksmith and had power over fire, and could transform the elements with it.

Kurt was clearly powerful. If he were only human and not an angel as Blaine had previously supposed, he must at least be a magician, for he clearly had a dominion over his surroundings that Blaine had never witnessed in an ordinary mortal before – not even his own father, the king. It would be impertinent to ask about the dragon. So Blaine asked Kurt about the shield, for he had never seen a piece of iron shine so bright, and it was almost as beautiful as Kurt’s visage.

"How do you make the shield shine so?" Blaine queried. "I have never seen iron of this brightness."

“That’s because it’s not exactly iron,” Kurt said.

“What, then?” Blaine said. “It doesn’t have the warmth of silver.”

“You’re right,” Kurt said. “It’s not silver. Silver would make a poor shield. And an expensive one.” He rapped the curved metal surface with his knuckles and it let out a sonorous ring. “This is iron with other elements added to it. They make it stronger and preserve it from rust. I don’t have it quite right yet, though.”

“It’s beautiful.” _You’re beautiful_ , Blaine wanted to say. He smoothed his hand over the surface of the shield. It was as smooth as marble. “These other elements of which you speak, that you have added to the metal – do you mean … magic?”

Kurt laughed. He might have been laughing at Blaine, but Blaine didn’t care; it was as lovely as the sound of water bubbling over rocks at the nearby spring. “No, Blaine,” Kurt said, shaking his head. “I mean other metals.”

“Why do you laugh?” Blaine said. He didn’t ask it defensively; he wanted to know. He wanted to understand everything about Kurt.

“It’s not a popular opinion,” Kurt said, “but I don’t believe in magic. Not as a separate force that people can manipulate, like air and water and earth. Magic is just what we call things we don’t understand. Once we understand them, they cease to be magic.”

Blaine stared at him. “There are many things I don’t understand.”

Kurt smiled. “Same here. But I try.”

“But –“ Blaine said. He stopped.

Kurt watched him and waited for him to continue. Blaine noticed that Kurt’s irises were made up of flecks of green and blue and the same silvery color as the shield on the bench. Blaine had seen many wonderful things today but this, perhaps, was the most sublime.

“But what?” Kurt said when no more words were forthcoming from Blaine’s mouth.

Blaine chewed his lip, and looked to the floor. There, scampering beneath the bench, were _two_ dragon hatchlings. They appeared to be sniffing out insects from the dirt floor.

Blaine pointed to them. “Those,” he said. He couldn’t say any more. It was all so strange and new.

Kurt looked at them. “You mean Bardulf and Baldewin?”

Blaine looked up at Kurt. “Your dragons … have names?”

Kurt laughed again, and it was like birdsong this time. It made Blaine’s heart want to flutter out of its cage. Kurt squeezed Blaine’s hand. “Those aren’t dragons, Blaine. They’re lizards. I got them from a trader from the south. They can’t survive up here for the most part, but they do well in a blacksmith’s shop because the fires keep them warm.”

“Lizards?” Blaine said.

“Have you not heard of lizards?”

“Oh,” said Blaine, “I have. But I always imagined them to look like snakes with legs.”

Kurt’s hand was still around Blaine’s. Blaine liked it that way. He felt safe, and his cheeks began to flush, and it was not only because he was in warmth of the blacksmith’s shop.

“So –“ Blaine hesitated.

“Yes, Blaine?”

It was perhaps a stupid question, but if it was, Kurt would only laugh cheerily and not ridicule him. And Blaine did love Kurt’s laugh. “Bardulf and Baldewin – they don’t breathe fire?”

Kurt smiled so that his eyes crinkled. “No, Blaine. They don’t breathe fire. And these ones are adults. They’ll grow no bigger than your hand.”

Blaine smiled back. “I like them, I think,” he said. “Even if they’re not magic.”

 _And I like you, too_ , he thought, although he didn’t say it. He just turned his hand around in Kurt’s until their fingers were intertwined and knew, in his heart, that he had found his companion at last.

—-the end—-

**Author's Note:**

> [Here’s the post](http://marciellesmusings.tumblr.com/post/45239943714/damiandominodavis-biologists-would-have-you) that inspired me to include lizards. the lizards in this fic aren’t necessarily armadillo-girdled ones, though - but OMG aren’t they cute?


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